So. The truth comes out. Bee-Dubya-Ell, whom we took and embraced to our collective bosom...Bee-Dubya-Ell, who we brought up and whose feet we placed on the Path of Righteousness...Bee-Dubya-Ell, in whom we placed our hopes and anticipations...Bee-Dubya-Ell, who we lingered to caress while we breathed our evening prayer...Bee-Dubya-Ell, who had joy in his pale blue eyes...

At our fireside, sad and lonely Often will the bosom swell At rememberance of the story, How our noble Bee-Dub fell; How he strove to bear our banner Through the thickest of the fight, And uphold Dear Moab's honor, In the strength of manhood's night.

Oh, weep, Mother! For Bee-Dubya-Ell is cornering the world's supply of wonts, ilks, fuck-alls, and such! Oh weep, dear MOAB, for your son had turned away from the Good Book and to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations!

But that's okay, 'cause Amos and Stilly and Bunn and Giok and me are here to comfort you, to gently press your aged hand and tell you, "It's okay."

Now, now, Rapaire! Don't be so hard on Bee-dubya. Let him have all the fuck-all he wants. Remember, dear, that if Bee-dubya has all the fuck-all and you don't have any fuck-all at all, you both still have the very same thing.

Stay on the snot subject for a while longer, if you would. I've been real busy at work and haven't had time to visit Mom much (Sorry, Mom!). If the subject changes too much (or Amos posts another treatise on some obscure intergalactic atomic body) I might lose the train of thought.

Snot all that hard, I guess. Anyway SRS, you haven't been paying attention! I have never posted about an obscure intergalactic atomic body. I have enough trouble keeping track of all the obvious, ground-hugging Terran-defined, macro-scale bodies around here!!

I did hear the most interesting diatribe today about intelligence today, in a taped lecture I was playing in my car, which I believe was called Matter and Consciousness by Paul Churchland. Anyway, he's going on about intelligence and whether it exists on other planets and so on, and he makes an interesting observations.

1. It is perfectly possible to be highly intelligent and have no capability to grasp numbers, math or arithmetic whatsoever.

2. It is perfectly possible to be highly intelligent and have no capability for language.

Both these conditions occasionally occur in humans.

So on the subject of possible patterns of alien intelligence, we should be prepared, should the day ever come, that it is possible to encounter a high intelligence from some other species which not only does not "do" math, or language, but has no idea such things exist.

This, he goes on, opens the door to another interesting question, namely that their may be modes of intelligence which we don't know exist, for which we do not have the capability, and which have all kinds of endless horizons in them just as mathematics and language seem to have.

How about THEM apples, huh? I mean, suppose you were an organism in a distant system, just for larks, who had evolved to be the united cellular awareness of the whole planet -- just one entity, a whole planet. No reason why not -- just because our organism is multi-iterative doesn't mean theirs has to be.

And imagine you used some of these areas of intelligence for which Terrans have no capabilities. To a Terran, the lights by which you measure your whole intellectual existence are not lights at all, not even a working channel, not even the little lit-up number that NAMES a channel of perception.

Amos, the concept of intelligent planets is hardly new -- Fred Hoyle wrote an SF novel about one; can't remember the name of it right off. Nor is the concept of intelligences we can't comprehend: all you have to do is read EE Smith's "Lensman" series.

Some roses have more pricks than others, and if life is just a bowl of cherries why do I get all the pits, what's more by the time the finger bowl gets to me there are none left. We are snot amused a Vicky once said. Giok

Think? What is this "think?" I know drink, brink, clink, chink, tink, shrink, dink, stink, fink, kink, mink, rink, pink, sink, wink, hink, and ink, but what is this "think"???? Is it something I should do?

I once took a cruise on the good ship Deja Vu out across the Redundant Sea. The Captain was Captain Was. Peter P. Was, to give him his less formal name. Peter Peter, as he was known to his family back in Repeat, North Dakota.

...but then, I was a perfect youth. I spent my youth in prayer, kneeling in church; in good works, taking baskets and a cheerful smile to shut-ins; in opposing Demon Rum, and in hymn-singing. My clothes were always neat and clean (albeit nicely patched) and my room, spartan and spare though it was, was always tidy and in good order. I would help with the dishes every meal, and my homework was always completed by 8 p.m. and I was asleep by 8:30 p.m. after having read a few pages of an uplifting and moral novel.

Have you ever had one of those days when you just finished a big project and thought you could relax a little, only to find that while you were racing to finish that very large project that a whole bunch of important little things gathered around on the corner of your desk and in your email and all of a sudden they're overdue or so close to due as to be as good as overdue?

Bleh. It's one of those days here. I was going to take comp time, but now I find myself working a 12-hour day instead. (At least I got an "attaboy" from a coworker at work today, that was nice!)

Have you ever had one of those days when you just finished a big project and thought you could relax a little, only to find that while you were racing to finish that very large project that a whole bunch of important little things gathered around on the corner of your desk and in your email and all of a sudden they're overdue or so close to due as to be as good as overdue?